The Icing on the Cake Hawk

It was the first home Penn State football game, which is a thing anticipated in this town with the absolute glee of an actual holiday. People - lots of people - come from far and near to watch our boys play in the House that Joe Built.

And on the way, those people get very hungry. So our local Boy Scouts make and sell hoagies on home game days. The hoagies are packaged to travel, which means all ingredients are separately wrapped so nothing gets soggy. They store for a day or two quite well.

The hoagies tend to sell out early, though. So my husband and I hopped in the car just after 8, and off we went to get our hoagies. The hoagies are now $8, up a bit from $7 last year. But the hoagies are good and it is still reasonable and we love to support our local Boy Scouts; after all, we've had TWO Eagle Scouts in our family!

So we got our hoagies, and they were among the last ones sold, for 10 minutes later, the Boy Scout stand was gone, and empty, and it was like they'd never even existed! Except that we had two nice Italian hoagies in the cooler for later. One for today. One for tomorrow. I like that.

Afterwards, my husband dropped me off at Mahala Street, and I walked home through the Barrens, which is a distance of maybe three miles. It was cool and pretty, with blue skies, and so it was very comfortable in the woods. The bugs were still bad; it'll take the first frost to knock them out.

So I had a very nice walk, and listened to my tunes box, and I heard all kinds of music from my collection that I hadn't heard in an awfully long time, if ever! The new blue tunes box (I'll give it a thorough review later) has some pluses and some minuses, but the amount of music it can carry is impressive.

And so, as I walked, I watched the woods fill up with light, and it was glorious, like being there to see the world be born again, anew. As it is each morning, for those who have enough hope, and faith, and love to hang in there through the darkest of night, until the light returns again.

I took many pictures, and I was amazed to discover that all of the ponds still have water in them! They never went dry this summer, which is odd. And in fact, I discovered recently that this past summer was one of the top 10 wettest on record for the State College area; top 7th out of 127 years of records. My ponds demonstrate that fact. (Oh, so now they're MY ponds, are they? LOL!)

I got to my end of the Scotia Barrens, and I put my sunglasses back on, as I walked out into the sunshine from the shady woods. I saw a shape flit above me and land on a power pylon. Oh, goodie, a HAWK!

So I found a couple of good angles and I snapped away, taking quite a few photos of the hawk as it sat and looked all around. It looked amazing and crisp against that bright blue sky. I have a Canon PowerShot SX 60 HS, and it is excellent for bringing distant things close. I own a monopod but don't often have it with me, so I was free-handing it, leaning on the trees for support.

Debbi and I believe this hawk may be a red-shouldered hawk, possibly a juvenile. Here is a link to more info. It was a delightful find, and it put the icing on the cake to a really lovely walk through the green end-of-summer woods.

Now, musically, there is a lot going on in my head right now. I usually include just one soundtrack song to go with each image, but there is more music that I need to share, so here we go.

As I was walking through the woods, and the light was coming up, and the angles were so gorgeous and clean, here is a song that came on my tunes box that was just perfect: Jim Croce, with Tomorrow's Gonna Be A Brighter Day. In the woods, it felt like THIS day WAS the brighter tomorrow!

When I saw the hawk land on the power pylon, I was reminded of the song Wichita Lineman, which was originally going to be my song for this posting. So here are two favorite versions, one by Glen Campbell, the other by Girl Named Tom. Also, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I'm growing to appreciate Glen Campbell more as I grow older. If you don't know what I mean, listen to him sing Highwayman. Does it get any better than this, really?

Also, unless you've lived under a rock, you probably heard the news that Jimmy Buffett passed away. This is a tremendous loss for the musical community. More personally, I have a story. My husband attended the U of Florida at Gainesville in the 70s, and he remembers Jimmy Buffett walking around campus barefoot with a guitar, drinking strawberry hill Boone's Farm wine, and playing his songs. 

I can't seem to wait for an opportunity to tie in some favorite Buffett tunes, so here are two. First is Jimmy with the Zac Brown Band, singing Son of a Son of a Sailor. I love how Zac Brown looks at Jimmy, just adoring being on stage with such an icon. And second is my actual all-time favorite Jimmy Buffett tune, He Went to Paris. I'm including the final verse from it below.  Some of it's magic, some of it's tragic, but I had a good life all the way. Go well, sir. Thank you for the music. <3

Now he lives in the islands, fishes the pilin's
And drinks his green label each day
He's writing his memoirs and losing his hearing
But he don't care what most people say
Through 86 years of perpetual motion
If he likes you he'll smile then he'll say
Jimmy, some of it's magic, some of it's tragic
But I had a good life all the way
And he went to Paris looking for answers
To questions that bothered him so